I have three children. The sum of their ages is 17. Tess is 5 years older than Sam, and Audrey is twice as old as Sam. What are their ages?

Question

I have their ages already. I need the equation to find them. Sam is 3 Audrey is 6 and Tess is 8.

Answer 1

Ok so let x=Sam

Then the question tells you that Tess is 5 yrs older than Sam to let Tess=x+5

Then the question also tells you that that Audrey is twice as old as Sam so let Audrey=2x

All together you know that they equal 17 so you just need to add up their ages using the equations just created:

 

x+(x+5)+2x=17

 

Solve for x

 

2x+5+2x=17

4x+5=17

4x=12

x=3

 

You know that x stood for Sam's age so Sam is 3

Plug that into Audrey's equation to know that she is 6

and Plug it into Tess' equation to know that she is 8